High Court Declines School-Counseling Case

The U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to hear an appeal from two
Michigan parents who alleged that a school counselor treated their son
against their wishes.

Daniel and Nancy Newkirk of East Lansing, Mich., contend that the
counselor, Michael Fink, violated their right to family privacy by
counseling their 8-year-old son because he was quiet and did not
interact with other students. The parents say that the sessions led the
boy to experience emotional problems and panic attacks.

The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville, Va.-based
religious-liberty organization, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the
parents.

A federal district judge ruled for the counselor in 1993, finding no
constitutional violations. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling
earlier this year. The high court declined without comment on Oct. 30
to hear the appeal of Newkirk v. Fink (Case No. 95-379).

Separately, the court rejected the appeal of the Knox County, Tenn.,
school district in a suit over who should pay $30,000 to $50,000 in
lawyers' fees stemming from a special-education lawsuit.

Two lower courts held that the parents of a hearing-impaired student
were the prevailing party in a dispute over his educational placement,
and thus were entitled to have the district pay the fees.

The district's appeal was Knox County Board of Education v. Rynes
(No. 95-351).

Zero-Tolerance Laws

Forty-four states met the Oct. 20 deadline for compliance with a
federal law that requires states to pass legislation mandating one-year
expulsions of students who bring a gun to school, the Department of
Education has reported.

Kentucky and Michigan are the only states that have not enacted
so-called zero-tolerance laws. A bill is pending in Michigan, and
Kentucky has been granted a waiver as its legislature does not meet
until next year.

The department said it was investigating whether laws passed in
Colorado, Mississippi, and Oklahoma meet the conditions of the federal
mandate, which was included in last year's amendments to the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act.

The department's report, issued last month, said South Dakota was
already planning to modify its anti-gun law in the next legislative
session to fulfill the federal requirements.

Anti-Drug Conference

President Clinton last week announced that he will convene a one-day
White House conference in January to discuss strategies for combating
teenage violence and drug use.

Participants will include Mr. Clinton, Cabinet members, health and
crime professionals, parents, and young people. A specific date has not
been set.

Mr. Clinton made the announcement during a speech in Washington to
the National Leadership Forum of Community Antidrug Coalitions.

"We want to bring together people like you to highlight successes in
local communities, and we want to help you build a true national
coalition to combat drugs and violence," Mr. Clinton said.

Philanthropic Inaction

Foundation leaders have failed to respond adequately to pending
congressional plans to cut social programs, a report from the Center
for Responsive Philanthropy charges.

"Despite the severity of budget cuts proposed by Congress, despite
the urgency of giving voice to underrepresented constituencies, and
despite the dire need for political reform," the report from the
Washington-based watchdog group says, "the response of the foundation
community has been negligible."

Few funders have actively reviewed their grantmaking priorities or
reached out to current or potential grantees to discuss a possible
response, says the report, which is based on 75 interviews with
foundation and nonprofit officials conducted over the past three
months.

Instead, it asserts, the foundation world "appears largely to have
accommodated itself to the 'new political realities,' remained
steadfastly on the margins of what government does, at best seeking
only to mitigate the worst social effects of the radical conservative
agenda."

Voc.-Ed. Nominee

President Clinton will nominate Patricia W. McNeil as the Department
of Education's assistant secretary for vocational and adult education,
the White House announced last week.

Ms. McNeil has served as the acting assistant secretary since June,
when Augusta Souza Kappner left the department to become the president
of the Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Before
joining the vocational-education office, as its deputy assistant
secretary, Ms. McNeil was the president of Workforce Policy Associates,
a private business that specialized in workforce-transition issues.

During the Reagan administration, Ms. McNeil served as the executive
director of the National Commission for Employment Policy, an
independent agency that reported to the president and Congress.

Her appointment to the assistant secretary's post will require
Senate confirmation.

Direct Lending Praised

An Education Department survey of higher-education institutions
found a relatively high degree of satisfaction with the federal
direct-loan program, under which the government makes educational loans
to students through their colleges.

The survey, released by the department last month, found that 61
percent of the schools participating in direct lending said they were
"very satisfied" with the program. Only 27 percent of schools
participating in the Federal Family Education Loan Program, in which
the government guarantees loans made by private lenders, gave the same
response.

Also, 59 percent of 104 schools surveyed called the direct-lending
program "relatively easy" or "very easy" to administer, while 28
percent of the 2,303 FFEL schools gave that response.

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